Internationalist Declaration from Korea against the threat of war

At the end of October 2006 , a conference of internationalist organisations, groups and militants was called by the Socialist Political Alliance (SPA) in the South Korean towns of Seoul and Ulsan. However modest the numbers present, the SPA is the first organised expression in the Far East (as far as we are aware) of the principles of the Communist Left, and this conference was certainly the first of its kind. As such, it has a historic significance, and the ICC gave its whole hearted support by sending a delegation to address the Conference.[1]

In the days leading up to the Conference, however, the long-term political importance of its goals was overshadowed by the dramatic sharpening of inter-imperialist tensions in the region caused by the explosion of North Korea’s first nuclear bomb, and the manoeuverings that have followed it especially on the part of the different powers present in the region (USA, China, Japan, Russia, South Korea). Consequently, the question was extensively debated during the conference and gave rise to the adoption, by the participants whose names appear below, of the following declaration:

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Internationalist Declaration from Korea against the threat of war

Following the news of the nuclear tests in North Korea, we, the communist internationalists meeting in Seoul and Ulsan:

1. Denounce the development of a new nuclear weapons capability in the hands of another capitalist state: the nuclear bomb is the ultimate weapon of inter-imperialist warfare, its only function being the mass extermination of the civilian population in general and the working class in particular.
2. Denounce unreservedly this new step towards war taken by the capitalist North Korean state which has thereby demonstrated once again (if that were necessary) that it has absolutely nothing to do with the working class or communism, and is nothing but a most extreme and grotesque version of decadent capitalism's general tendency towards militaristic barbarism.
3. Denounce unreservedly the hypocritical campaign by the United States and its allies against its North Korean enemy which is nothing but an ideological preparation for unleashing – when they have the capacity to do so – their own preemptive strikes of which the working population would be the principal victim, as it is today in Iraq. We have not forgotten that the United States is the only power to have used nuclear weapons in war, when it annihilated the  civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
4. Denounce unreservedly the so-called "peace initiatives" which are bound to appear under the aegis of other imperialist gangsters such as China. These will be concerned not with peace, but with the protection of their own capitalist interests in the region. The workers can have no confidence whatever in the "peaceful intentions" of any capitalist state.
5. Denounce unreservedly any attempt by the South Korean bourgeoisie to take repressive measures against the workng class or against activists in their defense of internationalist principles under the pretext of protecting national freedom or democracy.
6. Declare our complete solidarity with the workers of North and South Korea, China, Japan, and Russia who will be the first to suffer in the event of military action breaking out.
7. Declare that only the world wide workers' struggle can put an end for ever to the constant threat of barbarism, imperialist war, and nuclear destruction that hangs over humanity under capitalism.

The workers have no country to defend!

Workers of all lands, unite!

This declaration was signed by the following organisations and groups:

International Communist Current
Socialist Political Alliance (Korea), Seoul group meeting of 26th October 2006
Internationalist Perspectives

A number of comrades present at the Conference also signed the declaration on an individual basis:
SJ (Seoul Group for Workers’ Councils)
MS (Seoul Group for Workers’ Councils)
LG
JT
JW (Ulsan)
SC (Ulsan)
BM

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[1] We will be writing in more detail about the conference later.